DURHAM, NC (February 5, 2010) – The National Press Photographers Association will be using funds it received from its membership in the Authors Coalition of America (ACA) to increase its advocacy work, provide tuition grants to educational workshops, and to improve the public information aspects of its Web site, the organization announced today.
NPPA will also donate a portion of their ACA funds to the PLUS Coalition and the National Press Photographers Foundation (NPPF), two organizations that serve professional photographers.
NPPA joined ACA in 2009 and received a substantial amount of money to be used to serve professional (still) photographers in the United States who earn their living primarily by making photographs intended for publication, and whose work is reasonably capable of being photocopied outside of America.
The ACA is an association of twenty independent authors' organizations representing text writers, songwriters, visual artists, illustrators, and photographers. ACA represents more than 120,000 members. The Coalition was incorporated in 1994 by ten founding Member Organizations for the purpose of repatriating and distributing the creator's share of foreign non-title specific royalty payments for American works photocopied abroad.
NPPA's new national board of directors approved a plan to use the money to best serve the professionals in our industry who meet ACA's description during their recent business meeting in January 2010.
First and foremost on the board’s list of priorities was NPPA's advocacy effort. The board saw advocacy as the most effective way to help the greatest number of photographers. Therefore the board approved a large increase in NPPA’s advocacy budget. The committee, along with the NPPA’s general counsel, Mickey H. Osterreicher, will spend 2010 using increased resources to address First Amendment and intellectual property issues on both the federal and local levels.
The board also approved a $25,000 donation to support the Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS), an international non-profit initiative that is on a mission to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights.
The topics of education and information were the next priority for the board's distribution of its ACA funds, motivating them to allocate funds to improve the public areas of www.nppa.org, including NPPA's industry news and business practices section of the Web site that have always been open to the public. Due to specific ACA restrictions on how the funds can be used, none of the money can be used to improve anything behind the member login on the site. ACA funds must be used to help all rights holders, and not just NPPA members.
The board also approved funding tuition grants to NPPA’s News Video Workshop, the Advanced Storytelling Workshop, the Northern Short Course, and the Multimedia Immersion and Convergence. Again these tuition grants will only be available to professionals who meet the ACA's criteria as previously described. The board also made some ACA funds available for travel grants to these educational events. More details will be released on the application process in the coming days.
In addition to providing free education through the NPPA, the board also approved establishing a $25,000 scholarship with the NPPF. NPPA will work with NPPF to establish the parameters of the scholarship so that it fits the mission of both organizations and so that it adheres to the restrictions about how ACA funds can be spent.
In addition to the initiatives mentioned above NPPA has a few smaller projects in the planning stages. One action the board felt was important was soliciting proposals from the professionals they serve. Not all of the funds have been allocated and NPPA welcomes proposals, including business plans and budgets, for projects that serve U.S. professional photographers (still only) who earn their living primarily by making photographs intended for publication and whose work is reasonably capable of being photocopied outside the U.S.
NPPA's executive director Jim Straight invites such proposals and requests that they be sent to him via email at director@nppa.org with the subject line, "ACA Proposal."
